Virginia-based Islamic scholar indicted for urging Muslim American men to fight a “holy war” against the U.S.

Ali al-Timimi is an Islamic scholar known internationally for his lectures on Muslim religious topics. On September 23, 2004, the forty-year-old al-Timimi (based in Fairfax, Virginia) was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks he urged a group of Muslim-American men to travel to Afghanistan and fight a “holy war” against the U.S. troops who went there to overthrow the Taliban regime, which had permitted and supported the operations of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Al-Timimi was the recognized “spiritual leader” of a group of Washington, DC-area men who became known as the “paintball terrorists” because they trained for their terrorist missions by engaging in paintball games in Virginia.